advice on doing a vinyl run

[coldfuture]

Hi,

Its cliche at this point, I know, the short order vinyl white label run etc... but I don't care. I recently realized its a deeply personal thing to me to have records of my own music, since the majority of the techno I have liked for years has been released primarily in this way.

I know there are a few of you here who do small runs of vinyl, wondering if you could help me out as far as how to go about it.

Any advice/direction would be appreciated besides discouragement, because as I said this is personal and not based on practicality or success. It is only artistic expression, so I will ignore the naysayers.

[patrick bateman]

How do you want to sell the records?

[coldfuture]

Thats one part I am not entirely sure about. How do you sell yours?

I know the local shops here in California pretty well up and down the coast, but as to the way things end up on a site like, say hardwax, or Juno is beyond my knowledge?

[tone-def]

Its cliche at this point, I know, the short order vinyl white label run etc... but I don't care.

it's really not.

just because some idiot had a problem with white label vinyl in another thread, doesn't mean everyone else cares. the wannabe cool guys are too busy making shitty tribal house with spanish guitars and goat-herder vocals, which is sold exclusively on Beatport.

[coldfuture]

Its cliche at this point, I know, the short order vinyl white label run etc... but I don't care.

it's really not.

just because some idiot had a problem with white label vinyl in another thread, doesn't mean everyone else cares. the wannabe cool guys are too busy making shitty tribal house with spanish guitars and goat-herder vocals, which is sold exclusively on Beatport.

Thanks for that mate!

hilarious! QOTD imo.

I agree, its vinyl is not cliche at all, its a beautiful object.

[LouisVee]

I had the exact same question last week -.-

[patrick bateman]

okay, so first up you need to take the decision if you want to sell the records to each store yourself, or if you want to use a distributor.

Doing it yourself means you need to get in touch with each and every store and make agreements, and send them the records yourself.

Doing it through a distributor means you need to get an agreement with a distributor who sells your records for you.


Is the plan to only do runs of your own music and only as whitelabel?
How many do you plan to print of each release?

[steevio]

Thats one part I am not entirely sure about. How do you sell yours?

I know the local shops here in California pretty well up and down the coast, but as to the way things end up on a site like, say hardwax, or Juno is beyond my knowledge?

its really down to the quality of the tunes mate.

i'm not sure how easy it is these days to get a distribution deal, but i can imagine that not much has changed even with the huge downturn in vinyl sales over the last few years, which means the companies are very very choosey about what they sell.

hardwax will only sell music they really like.

i used to deal directly with Juno and they were very easy going and un-selective, but i sell to them through my distro now, so i'm not sure if they still do that.

i spent 5 years distributing my own vinyl, but it was easy in the UK, i could drive round the whole country in three days, and there used to be a dance vinyl shop in almost every town, and there were lots of international distributors who you could deal with directly on a one-off basis.
but i can imagine in the US, with such huge distances, and the current sales climate, its a non-starter for you apart from on a local scale, so you'd be talking very small numbers.

but if you've got a killer release on your hands everything changes.
it will be alot easier to get a distributor interested. its the only way to sell even a modest amount of vinyl nowadays.
and they would be even more interested if you've got the first 3 releases of a new label ready to go, and its quality.

a word of warning, distributors notoriously go bust on a regular basis, even big ones. thats not meant to be a discouraging mate, just be careful.